Article by Julia Howey
Since 2021, a team of Parish volunteers has been managing four verges as part of a Wiltshire Council Highways initiative to showcase and promote wildflower friendly management cutting schemes for roadside areas. Verges are home to almost half of our native flora so they really need to be cared for.
Working with expert ecologists and Wiltshire Council Highways, who have licenced out the verges for the initiative, the volunteer team has made great progress over the past three years. There is a noticeable increase in wildflower growth and diversity, as well as a suppression of grass, nettles, docks and hogweed as a result of introduction of native species such as Yellow Rattle.
The team has also reinstated an historic pond next to one of the sites which has bought with it an additional habitat for native amphibians such as frogs and newts, and invertebrates, insects and plant life.
Thanks to the success of the initiative, an area running from part way along Wood Lane, past the West Kington stud farm and halfway down the hill into West Kington has been designated as ‘Home Woods Nettleton Protected Verge’ This designation was awarded due to the historic nature of the plant life along the road, some of which has been growing there since woodland covered the area from the time of the last ice age. It includes an enormous array of species that identify it as originating from ancient woodlands. This designation as a protected verge will help landowners and Wiltshire Council Highways to finesse and manage how they cut or otherwise affect the area to maintain its huge value to the community.
Regular surveys are now undertaken by the volunteers and the verge monitors, Julia Howey and Rosemary Kerr, along Wood Lane to monitor the species found there as well as those “thugs”; which need to be cut back to allow other plants to emerge. So far, the surveys have found at least 78 species of flowers, 19 different trees and shrubs, 23 grasses/sedges/rushes, a field horsetail and 3 species of ferns.
All of the data the team collect is sent annually to Wiltshire Council who record and monitor plants growing throughout the county, checking whether species are thriving or endangered as well as making sure that special sites such as Wood Lane are at least being preserved if not improved. The Local Authority will also make sure that verges are cut at the right time, after seeds have dropped late summer / early autumn, and that highways or agricultural activity has no negative impact.
The volunteer team will also continue to maintain the 4 licenced verge areas in Nettleton twice a year and signs will soon go up to identify the new Wood Lane protected verges which are on both sides of the road.
If you would like to learn more about the project or become involved with the Nettleton Parish initiative, please contact Julia via email: juliabird25@gmail.com
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